6 Months of Work (RTS Textures)

[smurfbizkit]

Note: Can skip my needless rambling, pics below.

Its been a while since I've had anything to post up online for critique, however in the past 6 months I've probably done more game-art than I had in the entire 6 years prior.

Last spring I decided to talk my friend into having me create the mod 'MIDEAST CRISIS 2' for him, with my motivation being that it would force me to do a LOT of texturing, and game design (hopefully resulting in improvement). Now that we're close to release, I have to say that its helped me improve far more than I had hoped. I am still surprised that he let me take the original MEC, a fairly straightforward modern Israel vs Syria mod...and turn it into this part C&C:Generals 2, part neo-Crusade epic.

Art-wise, we've had 3-4 modelers submitting models, which I unwrap (or at least heavily update) and then texture*. I believe the final count is somewhere around 100 models, with 80 of them done (modeled/textured).

• Overall Info:
  
  Most were textured at 512x512 (a few at 1024x512), then scaled down.
  
  Since this is for Command and Conquer 3, we use spec and normal maps. The spec maps are typically red/black (with yellow, green and blue colors used for specific shaders). The normal maps are just made with the nvidia heightmap photoshop plugin.
  
  On average, they've taken me 2-4 hours to unwrap and another 4-8 hours to texture. (it used to take me 12+ hours a texture, but over the course of the project I've managed to improve my speed).
  
  I typically just use a hard-round brush, set with wet edges. I very rarely use any other brush, or stock textures.
  
  The style goal was halfway between Dawn of War and Company of Heroes (imo, Relic makes the best RTS textures, by far).
  
  The textures were also made with the map post effects in mind, which desaturate colors by roughly 50%.
  
  The models below were done by team members, not myself (with the exception of the F15 and Oil Derrick, which I heavily modified).

Here are a few of my personal favorites (in order of oldest to newest);



ingame screenshot (note: have a smoothing issue on the rear wings)

F15: I actually textured this twice, once with a white scheme which didn't work at all...so a few months later I overhauled it.



ingame screenshot

MCBurger Kong: Yea, the hebrew is wrong...its on my todo list to fix.



ingame screenshot

Ford 021c: My favorite thing done so far for the project. This is also the first unit which I painted in the interior behind the windows, which ingame works really well at faking depth.



ingame screenshot



ingame screenshot



ingame screenshot

News Van: I actually really don't like the van's texture that much, but ingame the model + normal map really seem to compensate. The concept is actually adapted from a garbage truck in the 'Ghost in the Shell' manga.



ingame screenshot

Technical: Not shown, flamethrower, rocket pod and side-armor versions (which are in the texture sheet).



ingame screenshot



ingame screenshot

Medibot: The concept was from an unused design for C&C Generals.



ingame screenshot



ingame screenshot

• Some things that I've learned:
  
  The really nice thing that I've found, is that after doing so many textures (many of which made me pay a price in sleep)...I actually enjoy doing it more than before. I was worried that after doing so many I'd be put off.
  
  More a painting technique than anything, but I try very very hard to not use black as any form of shadow...instead I try to use a darker version of the surrounding color.
  
  I also have tried to have the units transition from one color to another, working as a gradient from the front of the vehicle to the rear. For me at least, this adds a bit more interest. Sometimes I make it just go from the top of the vehicle to the bottom.
  
  The more reference I have for a texture (even if it is just random ideas), the better the texture ends up.

If you have any comments or suggestions on how I could improve I'd love to hear them! Please be brutal. :P


*Note: There are some units in our screenshots which were completely made (concepted/modeled/textured) by the talented spyVspy. He did the airships, drones and the bombers. You'd best know his work from the mods 'Halogen' and 'Asylum'.

[TinchoPF]

I can't find anything to critic, i just love every of your models and textures. really impressive.
congratulations, and hope to play that mod soon

[Talon]

As mentioned, no crits here. Good shape definition and colours.

Love the medibot

[benclark]

I'd love to be brutal and crit this stuff but there really isnt anything I can see to improve. I used to paint miniatures so I love RTS stuff like this

the tank is an outstanding texture, so much variation without looking too busy or noisey. Really cool stuff all around, one of the best bits of work I have seen on this site. Any chance you could post a wire of a few of the models? just curious of how they are built

[svelle]

they are looking really nice, I also don't have any crits on this.

[Pankake]

I love RTS art, and I can only hope to work on one in the future, this stuff looks great. Hope to see more!

[Talon]

By the way, that third texture on the tank... I take it that red channel = specular and blue channel = illumination?

[DazJW]

Red channel is for specular.
Blue channel is for faction colour areas and headlights, etc.
Green is for reflective areas.

MEC2 is shaping up fantastically.

[Minotaur0]

ahh lovely stuff, I'm really digging the textures My only crit is that the back of the orange'ish truck looks very blurry.

[weasel.acuh5o]

got to agree with the others, virtually no crits. great job, especially like the cnn van.